Ash Hand’s chances of successfully defending his hard-fought ‘GP’ plate from the 2009 Kartmasters outing were effectively extinguished by myriad tyre woes that left the highly-rated young Nuneaton star battling to all intents and purposes with one arm tied behind his back – but he made damn sure he didn’t go down without a fight.
Twelve months ago, Ash claimed one of the greatest successes of his career to-date by triumphing in the blue riband Kartmasters meeting at PF International in Lincolnshire, and he returned there this year buoyed by the timely boost of having achieved his maiden victory aboard his new CRG chassis – onto which he had only switched a month earlier – followed by a brace of podium finishes in the hotly-contested national Super 1 Series at Larkhall in Scotland.
“I was extremely confident going into the weekend, but not cocky,” the 16-year-old confirmed. “I knew I had the speed to win, but I also knew there would be a lot of other good drivers there as well. All the top names were there, which made it the toughest field of the year.”
Not only that, but with Kartmasters being a one-off event – and a prestigious one at that, uniting the very crème de la crème of British karting talent – a different mentality tends to prevail out on-track, with only one real prize to be had and no championship points on offer, leading to some occasionally reckless driving standards as all 39 Junior Max competitors eagerly chased the coveted trophy. And all that around a circuit that is in any case all-too often a magnet for accidents and trouble at the first corner and first hairpin...
By qualifying second in his group, Ash put himself out-of-reach of most of the chaos that unfolded behind him, but he would have been rather faster still, he contended, had it not been for an unexpected rogue batch of tyres.
“Going into the session I was three tenths quicker than anybody else – miles quicker – but then as soon as we put the qualifying tyres on I lost half a second,” he explained. “I was quite shocked by that, and I think we did quite well just to pull off the lap time that we did. After that, I knew I was going to struggle for speed.”
That sadly showed in the heats, in the first of which the Maple Park hotshot ran as high as third before helplessly slipping back and then finding himself pushed around in the closing stages to eventually finish fifth. Heat two yielded an identical outcome, with lap times barely inside the top ten in both races evidence of just how hard he had been made to work – and whilst the results were clearly not what he had either wanted or anticipated by any stretch of the imagination, in the circumstances they at least represented damage limitation, and left Ash to begin the pre-final on the favourable inside line from P5.
“I made a good start and then pushed Andy King around until we had a decent advantage over the others,” he recounted, “and then as soon as I saw there was nobody else within touching distance of us, I made my move for the lead and pulled out a gap.
“I was feeling comfortable, but then five or six laps later, all-of-a-sudden Matt Parry came past me and just drove away from me; that was a big surprise, because I thought it was in the bag at that point and that he didn’t have a chance to catch me. Obviously he did. I wasn’t happy afterwards because we had been beaten on sheer pace – he closed a big gap down really quickly, which left us a bit worried for the grand final, to be honest.”
Ash’s mood was subsequently alleviated somewhat, however, when Parry was demoted back to third for having illegally overtaken under yellow flags, re-instating the George Eliot School pupil in first place, and therefore on pole position for the grand final. Unfortunately, having requested a minor adjustment to his tyre pressures so that his kart would come on towards the end of the race, he instead ended up with a major adjustment that went too far and ultimately destroyed his chances.
“I was sitting on the grid knowing I wouldn’t be quick enough to win the race,” he reflected, “so I just had to try to build up a gap at the start and then hope I could hold everybody off. I was feeling racy and I knew I was more consistent than the others, which is what you need at Kartmasters to be able to establish an advantage.
“I backed everybody up coming to the line, so that when I accelerated away for the start I already had a three-or-four kart-length gap. Over the first few laps I seemed to drop the others a little bit, but then the tyre pressures came into play and we got hammered. Sean Babington came past me, and whilst initially I was able to stay in his tow hoping my kart would come back to me, as the race went on his kart just seemed to get better and better and he drove off into the distance.
“After that, I had a big battle with King for second. He defended really well, but over the last three laps or so he started to get a bit scruffy and aggressive. On the last lap I went up the inside of him exiting the second hairpin; I was clearly in front and he just drove straight into my sidepod and put me on the grass, which ultimately cost him second place when he was penalised for it after the race.”
Again, Ash’s lap times – only 11th-quickest – told more of the story, as the P1 Racing ace quite literally performed minor miracles to claim the runner-up laurels. A magnificent effort when he simply didn’t have the pace he needed to challenge, there were nonetheless many positives to take away from the weekend – not least of which the fact that he had once more shown himself to be amongst the very best drivers this country has to offer, and one with a bright future in motorsport indeed.
As he prepares next to head across the Channel to Genk in Belgium for the resumption of the Lewis Hamilton and Bernie Ecclestone-backed Formula Kart Stars Championship, the Warwickshire speed demon is aiming to replace his recent podium streak with a winning streak by re-establishing his erstwhile supremacy – and getting his season firmly back on-track with what he hopes will be his breakthrough national triumph for CRG.
“It just seemed like everything was against us over the weekend – luck definitely wasn’t on our side,” Ash mused in conclusion. “For me, Kartmasters was the most important meeting of the year, the only one where if I didn’t win I was going to lose something. I was obviously disappointed not to win it again, but I was pleased for Sean; I knew he would be one of the hardest people to beat, and at least it meant I passed the ‘GP’ plate over to somebody I really respect.
“On reflection now, I suppose I’m still quite happy with second; I was consistent throughout and didn’t make many mistakes. We just didn’t have the speed to win this time, but I was able to prove myself again – and if we hadn’t had the tyre issues that we did, it would have been a different story...”
